A friend of mine recently pointed out to me that we have never selected a Grateful Dead song for an edition of Cover Wars. I was somewhat aware of this, but he’s right – it’s time we do one. Now, I wanted to select a Dead song that hasn’t been covered by hundreds of artists, like Scarlet Begonias, St. Stephen or Franklin’s Tower. So, I poked around and found that there was a relatively small pool of artists that had played Dupree’s Diamond Blues, a track off of The Dead’s stellar 1969 release Aoxomoxoa.

Cover Wars

If you don’t know about The Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics, you should. Here is a small excerpt from the entry for Dupree’s.

The text of the song is a re-working of a song, “Betty and Dupree,” with many incarnations in American folk tradition. It was based upon a true incident:

“The biography of the man and his crimes may be summarized as follows: Frank Dupree grew up in Abbeville, South Carolina. He came on the scene in December 1921 in Atlanta, Georgia, where he had a gal Betty. In trying to appropriate a diamond for her in a jewelry store he shot a policeman down. Fleeing to Memphis and later to Chicago, where he was cornered, he killed a policeman and wounded several more. He was caught while getting his mail and sent to Atlanta for trial. He was executed for murder on September 1, 1922.” (Roberts: In the Pine.)

The Contestants:

Dark Star Orchestra: Though I decided not to include the likes of Ratdog or Phil Lesh & Friends as viable contenders in this Cover Wars, I thought it was OK to include the Dark Star Orchestra. Yes, people do tape these shows. This is a great recording from last year’s Gathering Of The Vibes where DSO performed The Dead’s 11-6-1977 in its entirety. Source: 7-31-2008

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READ ON after the jump to vote and hear more of this week’s contestants…

Jiggle The Handle: This is a fun show from Jiggle that is part acoustic and part electric. There’s a nice piano interlude from Paul Wolstencraft and while lead singer/guitarist Gary Backstrom mumbles a few words, he hits all the main events in the verses. Source: 5-4-2000

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Keller Williams: From what I can gather, this may have been the first live gig that Keller Williams did with The Keels. They also recorded it in the studio for their 2006 release Grass. Source: 1-27-2006

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Keller & The Keels had the opportunity to play Dupree’s with Bob Weir at the All Good Music Festival:

Tim Palmieri: There’s some banter at the end of this track that explains this one has been requested by a few folks for a long time. One of the toughest parts of this song has got to be remembering all the lyrics. Tim does a pretty good job but does combine two of the verses towards the end. Source: 2-12-2009

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The Waybacks: The Waybacks deliver the longest version this week clocking in at over nine minutes. This one’s got it all: Multiple lead vocalists, good harmonies, instrumental breaks and a tempo build-up culminating with a controlled frenzy to close out this cover, and this week’s Cover Wars. Source: 3-31-2009

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The members of The Waybacks played this tune with Bela Fleck at last year’s Merlefest:

Time to choose, register your vote below for this week’s best cover:

CLICK HERE to download this week’s contestants.

And finally, before we go, here’s the only clip on YouTube of The Dead playing the song. It’s blurry, it’s wobbly, but it’s worth watching: